Alfred Stieglitz- The Father of Modern Photography

Legendary photographer Alfred Stieglitz was one of photography’s pioneers. In a time when the arts, photography included, were stuck in the past and unwilling to change, he drove the art of photography into a new erra of expression. Because of this he is known by many as “the father of modern photography.” As the documentary explains: What Stieglitz was driving at was a new vision for a modern world; to teach America to see, and photography was the epitome of a new way of seeing… to shock the world of the arts out of its blind attachment to the past.

Part of the PBS American Masters series, The Eloquent Eye is an in-depth documentary on the life and work of this great man. And it’s well worth an hour and half of your weekend if you can spare it. (via FStoppers) Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz is known for the New York art galleries that he ran in the early part of the 20th century, where he introduced many avant-garde European artists to the U.S. He was married to painter Georgia O'Keeffe (SEEN BELOW)

Much More on Alfred Stieglitz HERE. VIA:fstoppers

HDR Photography from Realistic to Fantastic!

HDR or High Dynamic Range Photography has been all the rage for the past year or so. There are many new tools available to the photographer to capture and process this type of image, but much of the subject still remains elusive to many who would like to take full advantage of what you can achieve with these techniques. In this hour long, free webinar sponsored by Sekonic and hosted by Joe Brady, we’ll cover many of the ways available to create HDR images. We’ll also explore using a handheld light meter to make sure that the exposures we take deliver the best data for a successful image without filling up our memory cards and hard drives with many unnecessary exposures. Starting with the basics of exposure and metering, follow along as we take a look at some popular HDR processing softwares to create and enhance our images. More info and two (not one, two!) archives of the presentation for your educational pleasure after the jump… There are several styles of HDR Photography – from realistic to super-real to fanciful to surreal. Let’s explore ways to create each type of image depending on your desires and artistic vision. NOTE: Though both the 1PM and 3PM sessions cover similar material, the image demonstrations in each are different. If you enjoyed one, you might enjoy watching the other!

Controlling Light with Matthew Jordan Smith

About: Matthew Jordan Smith Amelie's Influence When was the last time a movie made an impact on you? The movie Amelie is one of my all time favorites, and if you are a photographer or artist you owe it to yourself to see this film. I have just completed watching it for the zillionth time, and even though this film is in French I muted the sound and focused only on the images. Notice how the color's red and green play a strong roll in this movie. There are several times when the color blue is introduced but rarely. If you want to enhance your photography in any way, do yourself a favor and watch this film, then share how it's influence your work. Here is a sample of how it's influenced mine.

 Matthew Jordan Smith is a celebrity fashion photographer, author and instructor[1] born in Brooklyn, NY and raised in Columbia, South Carolina [2]. Smith attended the Art Institute in Atlanta, GA. After graduation, Smith returned to New York City to pursue photography full-time. Smith's big break came when he was hired by Essence Magazine to photograph Anita Hill. Smith went on to photograph high profile celebrities such as Tyra Banks, Vanessa Williams and Queen Latifah[3]. Smith's clients include Pantene, L'Oreal, Ebony and Essence[4]. In the Fall of 2001, Smith published his first book, Sepia Dreams-A Celebration of Black Achievement Through Words and Images, published by St. Martin's Press [5]. The book encompasses a collection of photographs and interviews with fifty African-American celebrities, all of whom spoke with Smith about the motivations and qualities that enabled them to find and embrace success. In June of 2003, Smith was honored by Eastman Kodak when they selected him as one of their Kodak Icons. [6] In 2006, Smith was commissioned to shoot the photos for the American Photos Mission Series, published by American Photo Magazine[7], sponsored by Microsoft and endorsed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Smith currently resides in the Greater Los Angeles Area. He has been a featured photographer on several cycles of America's Next Top Model[8], most recently Cycle 9 .

THREE BASIC COMPONENTS OF EXPOSURE EXPLAINED

Matthew Gore of Light & Matter created this beginner-friendly video tutorial on the three basic elements of exposure: aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. It’s explained with easy to understand illustrations and examples, and features graphics and sounds that are reminiscent of old 8-bit video games. You can also find a text-based version of the tutorial here. The Three Basics of Photography (via Xatakafoto)

FIND CHART HERE.

Cool Stop-Motion Tutorial

  Carlos Lascano is one of the top names in Stop Motion photography, so Kessler was honored when Carlos crafted this piece as a primer for the making of stop motion video with the CineSlider and Oracle Control System. So for those of you who ever had an interest in making stop motion, here's Carlos to show you how it's done. by Kessler Crane In 2007, after being in charge of the Edition and Postproduction Department in In Vitro Films (Barcelona), Carlos resumed his freelance career and moved to Madrid, where he actually lives. After the experience acquired from The Legend of the Scarecrow, he deepened his drawing style and merged it with his extensive technical knowledge and his filmmaking experience, in order to focus on the creation of animation pieces. In 2008 he published online his latest short film, A short love story in Stop Motion, which collected over two million views and around 40.000 quotations[5] in websites from all over the globe in the first six months. Then came The Can, a spot commissioned by Red Bull Austria, intended to be part of a program that Red Bull organized together with the University of Applied Arts Vienna. In 2009 he founded his own production company, DreamLife Studio SL, with the intention of starting to produce his own works on a larger scale. The company is based in Madrid. In 2009 and 2010 he focused mainly on advertisement, working on large campaigns for Al Balad Newspaper in Lebanon, Oscillococcinum in France, Popsicle Ice Pops in the US, and TetraPak in Russia[6]. During 2010 he also directed the music video J’ai pas le temps for French singer Gabi. The video was featured at the third episode of the Zacuto’s Emmy award winning web series The Great Camera Shootout [7], in Chicago, where Lascano also participated as a guest. Later on that year, he was invited by Vimeo to participate as a judge for the Animation Category of their first festival, Vimeo Festival + Awards [8], held in New York on October 9th, 2010, next to other award-winning filmmakers such as David Lynch, Nicolas Schmerkin and Vincent Laforet. In 2011 he was commissioned by Amnesty International to write and direct an animated spot for their 50th anniversary. The original score was composed by the Academy Award Winner Hans Zimmer and the Academy Award Nominee Lorne Balfe, and the production took place in Prague between his own company, DreamLife Studio and Eallin Motion Art. The spot was internationally released by Amnesty International on May 28 th, 2011, on the day its 50th anniversary was commemorated. Also in 2011, Carlos released one of his most ambitious projects: a mixed-technique animation short film, A Shadow of Blue [9] [10], film that qualified for the 84th Academy Awards.[11]. Owner of a very personal style, his mixing of digital tools and real objects brought a new organic aesthetic concept[jargon] to animation, making Carlos achieve international recognition,[12] and setting him on the sight of large advertisement companies. Eallin Motion Art [13] (Czech Republic), Bent Image Lab (USA and Canada), Cube (France), Boiron (France) and Trix (Portugal), are some of the companies he is currently working with.

Tips for Photographing Insects on Flowers

April 28, 2012 @ 7:25AM 20 Tips for Insects on Flowers Macro Shots of Insects in the Field

Photographing insects on flowers can be hugely rewarding as well as immensely frustrating – especially when the quarry takes flight, just before the shutter is released. Having spent the last four years concentrating on flowers and their pollinators I'm able to share some of the pitfalls which, if overcome, can make insect photography infinitely more rewarding.

No doubt we all have our own little foibles and preferred techniques. If they work out fine, then carry on using them; but hopefully there maybe a few tips here which will help to increase your success rate. Larger insects such as butterflies are easier than solitary bees or hoverflies because you don't have to get so close to fill the frame. I know it is easy to crop an image afterwards, but the aim should be to fill much of the frame with the flower and the insect. There is nothing wrong with slight cropping, but try to avoid anything too drastic, since you will just end up with a much smaller file size – OK for posting on the internet, but not for making a good-sized print or winning a competition!

I can recall a guy I met many years ago who was using a twin reflex camera with film to take his insects. When I queried this, his answer was he could get a frame-filling shot by cutting the 6 x 6 cm film down to 35mm! Quite apart from the extra cost of film and processing, there was the time spent cutting the transparencies and mounting them.

If you are just starting on insect photography, how do you decide where to go to shoot? There are certain flowers, which are particularly attractive to insects – either because they produce copious pollen for pollen feeders or tempting nectar for the nectar feeders.

Nowadays it's possible to do a web search for flowers that attract insects by searching for any of the following so you can look out for them in gardens or in the wild or even plant some in your own garden.

plants for pollinators

butterfly plants

bee plants

Here is a list of pollinator plants compiled by The Royal Horticultural Society for UK gardens and one for US gardens which has 31 regional downloadable guides with relevant native plants listed.

Some of the best insect plants are not always especially attractive to our eyes. I am thinking of the flat-headed umbels such as cow parsley or Queen Anne's lace, which are just coming into flower in southern England. To insects, the umbel is like a big dinner plate on which several insects can dine at the same time.

Insects won't fly if it is raining or windy, but once rain stops and the sun appears it won't be long before insects emerge form their cover to feed. Temperature is also important, as many insects need to warm up their flight muscles before they can take to the air.

It often pays to watch the way each type of insect feeds. Those that make fleeting visits are always tricky to photograph because you hardly have time to focus before they are off to another flower. Once a bee fly decides which flower to visit, it hovers to feed or else rests its long legs on the flower itself and spends some time extracting the nectar with its long proboscis that sticks out in front of the head as it flies low over the ground. Bee flies take a while to warm up and won't take to the wing unless the temperature is around 17º C. Even then, they repeatedly stop feeding to sunbathe

The time of day is another factor, because this not only affects the time when flowers open their petals, but also when they secret nectar. For example, evening primrose produces nectar at dusk to coincide with the time the flower begins to open for its nocturnal pollinators.

Virtually all these shots were taken with either the 105mm micro-Nikkor or the 70-180mm micro- Nikkor zoom lenses.

Here are my main tips.

1. In early spring, with cold nights, it is pointless going out too early as insects won't have warmed up enough to fly.

2. Some insects overnight in flowers and so are easy to take when they are still comatose.

3. Insects are more approachable before they fully warm up, because they are less active and tend to linger longer on flowers.

4. When approaching, avoid sudden jerky movements.

5. Avoid casting a shadow over the flower from either your body or the camera.

6. Try to get the sensor plane parallel with the top of the insect, if looking down on it, or from the side if taking a butterfly with closed wings.

7. Longer macro lenses such as 200mm will give a greater working distance than shorter ones.

8. Forget using a tripod; it is much more flexible to work on the hoof.

9. Switch on VR or IS to reduce the risk of camera shake.

10. To gain a closer viewpoint for low growing flowers, crouch down carefully with one knee on the ground and the other raised to support an elbow.

11.Try to fill a good part of the frame with the insect.

12. For crisp shots of active insects, either use a fast shutter speed or preferably a flash mounted with the camera on a flash bracket.

13. Use a wireless speedlight system such as the Nikon R1C1 SU-800 with two SB-R200 flash units fitted on a ring around the lens (or used one unit off the lens to gain backlighting) for speedy boosting macro lighting.

14. For a butterfly, a bee or hoverfly feeding, a head-on shot shows the structure of the proboscis as it probes the flower for nectar.

15. In poor light and on windy days, increase the ISO to gain a faster shutter speed.

16. Vary the format; remember to shoot some verticals as well as horizontals.

17. To control the depth of field use either use either Aperture Priority or Manual Exposure Mode so you can select the most appropriate aperture.

18. Stop down the lens to gain a greater depth of field or open up the aperture for more creative shots.

19. Locate bumblebees by listening for their distinctive buzz and bee flies from the whine made by their wings.

 20. Don't shoot insect backsides – unless you want to record a diagnostic feature for aiding a correct ID!

Have fun!

Forget WiFi, Connect to the Internet Through Lightbulbs

 

Posted by truther on April 23, 2012

Whether you’re using wireless internet in a coffee shop, stealing it from the guy next door, or competing for bandwidth at a conference, you’ve probably gotten frustrated at the slow speeds you face when more than one device is tapped into the network. As more and more people—and their many devices—access wireless internet, clogged airwaves are going to make it increasingly difficult to latch onto a reliable signal. But radio waves are just one part of the spectrum that can carry our data. What if we could use other waves to surf the internet? One German physicist, Harald Haas, has come up with a solution he calls “data through illumination”—taking the fiber out of fiber optics by sending data through an LED lightbulb that varies in intensity faster than the human eye can follow. It’s the same idea behind infrared remote controls, but far more powerful. Haas says his invention, which he calls D-Light, can produce data rates faster than 10 megabits per second, which is speedier than your average broadband connection. He envisions a future where data for laptops, smartphones, and tablets is transmitted through the light in a room. And security would be a snap—if you can’t see the light, you can’t access the data. You can imagine all kinds of uses for this technology, from public internet access through street lamps to auto-piloted cars that communicate through their headlights. And more data coming through the visible spectrum could help alleviate concerns that the electromagnetic waves that come with WiFi could adversely affect your health. Talk about the bright side.